“Well, princess, I’m guessing you’re the Daphne who has a reservation at the lodge for a month.”
The woman eyed me, her gaze uncertain and distrustful. When a light gust of wind blew a lock of her hair across her forehead, she released a puff of air, which expertly got it out of her eyes. “Fine. I am that Daphne. Is it necessary to call me princess?”
Dear God. This woman was something else. If she cleared five feet tall, that would be remarkable. She was short, petite, tidy, and gave off an uptight vibe. I didn’t know what she was thinking when she signed up for a month at my family’s adventure and expedition lodge.
I was irritated. I was doubly irritated because my body seemed to think she was hot as all hell and then some. I couldn’t fucking believe it, but when she spoke in that haughty, sharp tone and lifted her chin just a little bit more, my entire body tightened, and a shot of blood arrowed to my cock. What in the ever-loving hell was going on?
Daphne looked to the side, and I took a moment to absorb a few more details about her. My eyes dropped down to that button at the top of her blouse. I wanted to undo it. With my teeth.
Forcing my gaze upward, I traced along the angle of her jaw and the way her pert nose tipped up at the end. Her skin was rosy, like her lips, which were perfectly shaped. Just like a goddamn bow. Even worse, she had this little dimple on one side. She hadn’t even smiled yet, but I could see the hint of it hiding there, waiting to peek out.
When she looked back toward me, her brow was knitted with worry. “I’m not sure why you’re passing by, but I don’t suppose you can help me with my, um, situation,” she said, gesturing toward her little SUV.
“You’re the reason I’m coming by. I saw your car from the air. That, and the bear.”
“You could see me from the air?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s a small plane, and I was coming down to land. Not too hard to see your bright blue SUV on the side of the road and a big brown bear grazing beside you.”
“I really appreciate this. You don’t happen to know who runs the lodge, do you?”
“That’s me.”
“You’re Flynn Walker?”
“At your service,” I replied.
Daphne’s eyes traveled up and down before landing on my face again. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was checking me out. But I knew better. No way was this uptight princess checking me out.
“Mind if I hop in your SUV?” I asked.
“I don’t think you can drive it out,” Daphne said as she stood planted in her boots and skirt in the middle of the road.
“Sure I can, princess. Give me those keys.” As I approached her, she stood her ground, the pink tinge on her cheeks deepening. “I can get it out, no problem.”
I kept on walking, and she spun quickly, hurrying to catch up with me. “Okay, the keys are in it. I’m sure you’ll have to move the seat back.”
Sliding my gaze sideways when I stopped to open the door, I said, “Oh, I’m sure about that. Mind if I try?”
“Be my guest,” she said, gesturing with her hand when she stepped back. “If you can get me out of the mud, that would be wonderful.”
The seat was practically kissing the steering wheel. I slid it back, climbed in, and started the SUV. After I closed the door, I rolled down the window. “You’re going to need to step back. Mud’s going to fly.”
She crossed her arms and arched a brow. “All right then.” She took several strides toward the other side of the road.
After starting the engine, I made sure the four-wheel drive was engaged. I tested it lightly to see if she had any traction on that one rear wheel. Not a damned bit. After a quick scan to get the lay of the vehicle’s controls, I shifted into differential gear. As soon as I felt it click into place, I gave the gas pedal a little pressure and felt the strong grind of the axle.
In another moment, the SUV bounced forward, and I heard a squeal from Daphne. I couldn’t look her way just yet and eased the vehicle onto the road before I put it in park and cut the engine. When I climbed out, my mouth fell open. Daphne was covered in mud.
I bit back a smile. I didn’t how the hell that happened. From where she’d been standing, she should’ve been clear from the mud spray. When I met her eyes, a look of shock held for a beat before she threw her head back with a laugh.
Fuck me. Princess had a deep, throaty laugh when she let it loose.
I chuckled when she met my eyes again as her laughter slowed. “Oh, my God. I tried to be helpful and walked behind to give it a little push.”
“You pushed?”
“No,” she said, looking sheepish as she shook her head. She lifted a hand to smear some of the mud off her cheek. Not that it did anything to help. “I got back there right when whatever you did worked. The mud splattered all over me.”
Daphne looked down. There was mud on her face, in her hair, and covering the entire front of her pretty blue blouse. There were splashes of mud on her skirt and her knees.
Hot damn, she looked sexy as hell covered in mud.
I was losing my mind. This out of nowhere and inconvenient attraction to Daphne made absolutely no sense.
I tried to keep from laughing when she looked back up at me. She rolled her eyes, and that dimple made a sweet appearance when she smiled. “It’s okay. You can laugh.”
I chuckled softly. “I’m sorry. You just don’t seem the type to get all muddy.”
Her smile faded, and something flickered in her eyes, but she shuttered it quickly. “I aim to change that. Now, perhaps you can show me the way to the lodge. If you didn’t notice, my dashboard seems to be flickering in and out. My GPS is broken, and there’s no cell phone reception here, so I wasn’t sure if I was headed in the right direction.”
“Well, gotta give it to you. You just kept on going.”
She nodded, her chin lifting a bit again.
“Follow me then.”
Chapter Three
Daphne
About ten minutes later, I stood beside Flynn and completely forgot I was covered in mud. “Oh, wow,” I breathed reverently. “It’s even prettier than the pictures.”
Flynn’s unsettling, sharp gaze angled to mine. This was the closest I’d gotten to him. His eyes were like nothing I’d ever seen. The blue was encircled with a dark rim, almost as if an artist had shaded charcoal around the edges. “It’s definitely nice,” he commented.
“Nice?”
He shrugged. “Okay, beautiful.”
The tiny hitch at one corner of his lips was enough to send my belly spinning in flips. Oh. My. God. If this man ever graced me with a full smile, I’d probably climb him like a freaking tree.
Walker Adventures was heralded as one of Alaska’s premier outdoor expedition lodges. It was a stone’s throw from Diamond Creek, which I understood to be a town with plenty of restaurants and tourist attractions, but it was hard to imagine anything resembling civilization nearby. It truly felt as if we were in the middle of nowhere.
Spruce trees surrounded us. The lodge, a massive timber-frame building that looked like an extremely nice home had dark stained wooden siding with a steel blue roof and was covered almost entirely in solar panels. The building was the shape of an octagon with floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides and all three floors.